I Was Born to Endure This Kind of Weather
by Sidalee
Summary: This isn't how courtship is supposed to go, really. This is like leaping over not one or two hurdles, but all of them. Like taking off from a cliff and knowing it's either fly or fall. AU one-shot.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing you recognize…

**A/N:** So, the thing is that I'm in a pretty awful mood and I wanted to write something good but this happened and well…yeah. I know you aren't into AU stories much but I just couldn't fit this into the h50 canon, hope you understand and enjoy it anyway. It doesn't actually makes a difference plot-wise, imho, coz this is about cocky/sarcastic and stupidly in love/goofy McKono. So, does it really matter what their profession is?

Also, apparently I put too much thought into Steve's strut. I regret nothing.

Tell me what you think!

* * *

"_Would_ you stop?" Kono snaps at Danny. "Go take your man-crush somewhere else, please."

Distantly, in the part of her that used to plan out people's responses before they made them, a habit that got her into enough trouble that she no longer gives that part of her credence (although she can't turn it off, either), she expects Danny to splutter and maybe blush and flail his arms dramatically and say things in an incomprehensible, babbled response, like, _Man-crush? I do not have this insulting thing! What the hell is the matter with you?_

Even if he _does_. The clock reads 9:15, which means that's a solid twenty minutes of Steve McGarrett this and Steve McGarrett that. And lately half of the stuff he's saying aren't actually insults. It's worrying, really.

Instead of blustering, however, Danny gives her a sharp look with his bright blue eyes and nods to himself. "It's not a man-crush, actually. Steve is rapidly becoming a friend, even if he does insane, reckless things most of the time, and like normal human beings, we discuss our friends with other friends. This means _you_, Kono."

"Yes, yes, you've said enough times."

"I will say more, until you - "

"I _get_ it."

Danny's grin is kind. "Very well. To repeat myself: I am discussing a friend with my friend."

"Yes, you explained that already." She doesn't give him a pleading look and say but _why_ is he babbling on about the apparently illustrious Commander McGarrett, because there are others around and she has some pride. Okay, a lot of pride.

Danny can be a mind reader, though, and his grin softens into something sad. "I speak of him because I think, perhaps, that I see something that you don't or you know, refuse to see."

He doesn't explain no matter how much she demands, able to ignore her insults and red-faced imprecations with the ease of long practice. Instead, he talks again of Commander McGarrett's ability with the sniper rifle and how good he is with interrogation, and that he only watches movies with armed conflict in them. Almost like he's...

Kono stares at Danny for a full minute. "If you're doing what I think you're doing," she says in a dangerously low voice. "I'd stop. Now."

She stomps off without waiting for an answer, but she can still hear Danny whisper, "Ah. Then I'm doubly right."

Which makes even _less_ sense. Commander McGarrett is, admittedly, better than most of the base commanders she'd had before she joined this task force. He asks questions - real, serious questions - and he respects her enough to listen to her answers, even if he doesn't always agree with her. And even then, he agrees a _lot_ more than her last CO back at the base, a sallow, moon-faced man who'd looked at her like she was less than the clod of earth on his heels. Worse, he'd also dismissed her suggestions and recommendations as _irrelevant_, which of course they absolutely were not. Hers were the most relevant of comments and if he'd just listened to her during that last foothold situation -

Well. She hadn't mourned him that much, honestly.

McGarrett was better. McGarrett treated her the way Chin did, like she might actually be an equal. From a former SEAL that's amazing enough, but from a military _man_, that's something Kono has precious little experience with. The men she's met that don't mentally call her 'the lithe woman' (the polite version; she's certain 'bitch' and 'shrew' figure in a lot of the actual appellations) tend not to be the kind who work for any kind of military in any country.

And they certainly don't walk like McGarrett does.

She's not sure when she noticed it, consciously. But it's there, subtle and pervasive, and eventually she'd caught the way McGarrett's hips swung just enough, legs not quite bowlegged but clearly compensating for _something_, the way he lounges and slouches, minimizing his height and causing his pants to crease and bulge in really interesting -

"Not interesting! It's not!"

"What isn't interesting?"

Kono makes a completely undignified squawk and lurches off her seat. McGarrett is there in an instant, battle-honed reflexes getting an arm around her waist before he uses those hips and thighs to push her bottom back to the safety of curved plastic.

He's warm, a part of her mind informs her with almost purring pleasure. His whole body is _warm_ and her side is tingling where he was braced against her. "Ow," she says mechanically.

"Have you eaten?" McGarrett peers at her, drifting into her personal space with a hand loose against her shoulder, frowning. "You're pale. Did you skip breakfast again?"

He toggles his radio before she can say yes, of course she ate breakfast, she always _does_, and by the time he finishes ordering a couple sandwiches for the two of them, she realizes that actually, she hasn't eaten. Her bagel sits cold and unappealing on her office desk, she can see it through the slats in the window, where she forgot about it because Danny had appeared, talking about Commander. Fucking. McGarrett.

McGarrett, meanwhile, is still hovering over her like his mere presence will do all the wonderful things her co-workers sigh over. "And now you're red. You brought breakfast and forgot to eat it, huh? Don't worry about it. It's time for a tensies, anyway."

"Elevensies," she corrects. He knows his hobbits?

"Yeah, but it's not quite ten. So, tensies." His grin is charming, open and teasing, and Kono can't help but stare at it. Does he smile at others that way? She thought so, but maybe not. There's something less walled off as he tilts his head at her, encouraging her to share in the joke. Something less removed.

"Okay," she concedes, teeth clenched. "Maybe interesting."

"You gonna tell me the subject?"

"No. No, I'm not." She _absolutely_ isn't thinking about it, and her eyes aren't dropping down his torso, which her brain tells her is lean and long and nicely outlined by his navy uniform-shirt, to where his pants bunch from the way he's half-crouching to look at her and oh, _god_, he dresses right.

She fights the urge to cross her legs. "It's of no importance at all," she blusters.

"Uh huh. Just a sec. Thanks, Charlie." McGarrett directs the nervous tech guy to put the tray he's carrying on a table that's not quite as heavily covered as the rest, giving him a - huh. A totally different smile. This one is primarily professional, even if bringing trays for cranky marines is in the unofficial job description, but it has more than the hint of friendship. Which is different. McGarrett's smile is more narrow, more pursed, closed lips than the slightly open-mouthed smile he gives her, and Kono suddenly wishes she could see his teeth. They're white and even and surprisingly pretty.

And she is going _insane_.

"So, Chin mentioned you're tinkering with the experimental explosives again."

She's twenty minutes onto the discussion, which involves pontificating via roast beef, before she gets that she's being manipulated. She doesn't stop talking because Commander McGarrett is holding his own nicely and actually, that ideas he has on the chemistry and physics are not half bad and she makes a mental note to explore it further. But he _is_ manipulating her.

With that slightly parted smile and crinkled lines around his eyes, warming them until the stormy gray there blurs dazzling blue.

"Lieutenant Kalakaua? Are you all right? You're staring off into space which... I don't think I've ever seen you do. Without a crisis, anyway."

"I - you can call me Kono," she blurts out. "If you wanted."

Commander McGarrett's eyes narrow further, twinkling happily as he gives her a lazy - parted, his lips are parted - smile. "I'd be honored to, Kono," he drawls, pure, summer-sunshine shivering down her spine. "Thanks."

"And?"

An eyebrow goes up. "And?"

"And can I - oh, you're impossible!" she shouts, deliberately powering to her feet and looking down him and god, that's not just dressed right, that's an _anaconda_ dressed right, the damn pants are pulling like her shirts do when she forgets her waist is one size and her boobs are another. Except she's not thinking about her waist, or her breasts, and she's certainly not thinking about those things in relation to Commander McGarrett with his too-tight pants, because she's angry and frustrated and doesn't get at all while Danny is laughing into his hand and Commander McGarrett looks so amazingly pleased, like a kid given a present he wants but didn't think he could have. "Thank you for the sandwiches," she says, mechanically, "good bye."

"Bye, Kono," he calls after her, jovial.

She's going to kill him.

.

.

The next two months are frustrating. Commander McGarrett is spending more and more time around her when they don't have a mission and maybe she starts to regret accepting the job, okay that's not true actually, because how many of her fellow marines can say that they are a part of a special ops team even if it's a joint operation to keep everyone happy and she has to work with annoying Navy SEALs and forever bitching special agents.

And it's likely that she's the only one who has a problem with McGarrett. Other people seem to get along with him, even Danny – who supposed to resent everyone but his daughter – , which is the ultimate sign of the impending apocalypse.

It's other people who don't mind whenever McGarrett leans against their desks or their _chairs_, hips brushing against certain people's shoulder blades, or a amicable hand patting shoulders or, memorably, once the back of her _neck_, cupping warmth and security there until she stops hyperventilating and figures out the problem.

And yes, okay, so it's not other people. Other people like McGarrett just fine.

And she is going _mad._

"Are you a goose?" she snaps at Jenna. "Because you sound like one with all that _yammering_."

"I'm pretty sure geese don't yammer. They honk," Jenna shoots back without missing a beat.

"This is your fault," she hisses, glaring. "This is all your fault!"

McGarrett doesn't bother looking up from his stack of paperwork, just idly kicks her ankle underneath the table. "You're gonna have to tell me what I've done before I'll cop to it."

"Oh, you _know!_" Which, actually, isn't true, she doesn't think. But she's so angry and frustrated that she doesn't have the words to convey what he's doing to her and anyway, McGarrett won't listen. He's too busy giving her a smile that's soft around the edges, reaching out and circling her wrist in a loose grip.

"No, I don't, actually. And it's time for a break. Your heart rate's starting to go up. You hit a record, you know. A whole four hours without you spiking over a hundred!"

The strangle, inarticulate noise that escapes earns her nothing but a grin and a squeeze of her wrists. Kono tries desperately not to catalog the sensation of his fingers on her skin, the way she can almost feel the specific whorls that mean Commander Steve McGarrett and no one else…

"C'mon. We're taking lunch out, today."

"Oh, we are not! I have a simulation - "

"That won't be done for three or four hours, and Jenna would be the one to let you know if anything's wrong anyway." He's so fucking patient with her. Unflappable, even as he practically drags her down the hallways. "So instead of using the radio, she'll use the phone. C'mon, Kono, it's nice outside. I want something not prepared by the military."

"You mean that greasy spoon you love. The one with - " With _her_, that stupid, dark-haired girl with the hippy name that gives McGarrett cow-eyes and vapid smiles every time they go there to eat. She always leans too close, too, like she can see the way McGarrett holds himself just like Kono, the way he holds his hips _out_, and maybe even the reason why.

Not that Kono's seen that. Or thought about it.

She _absolutely hasn't_ thought about it.

Not even when the shower's on and her fingers are slick and tingling from her own heat, her mouth parted as she thinks if she could even _manage_ it, if it would hurt, god, would she even be able to fit it in her mouth? She loves giving blow jobs, but she's still a woman and comparatively smaller in scale than McGarrett. Everyone accuses her of having a big mouth, but does that mean _physically_ bigger? Compared to another woman, to a man?

Kono climbs into McGarrett's truck and looks across worn bucket seats, watching as McGarrett climbs in: legs spread, pants bulging and god, it's _moving_, she can see it, before it settles back to the right, forced there by the seam of his pants. It's kind of alarmingly big, from that angle, and she gulps, suddenly wondering if it will get even bigger when hard. Some guys didn't, although she's never seen that for herself.

While she's not inexperienced at all, she knows her sample base is pretty narrow. So he might not get bigger, especially since he's roughly twice the size of her last partner, and she is going _insane_. It's all she can think about, for the last two months! Not just Commander McGarrett and his infuriatingly different smiles, or the way he sometimes will stare at her, just stare, lazy and still like he might even be happy. It's the other people at the ops, too, always gossiping about him and some of them have noticed the way he walks just like Kono, and their eyes _follow_ him and all she wants to do is jump in front of them and say _mine_, even if he isn't, even if he won't ever be.

Because she's Kono Kalakaua and guys with big dicks - _military_ guys with big dicks - don't exactly pine over military girls with an explosives fetish that are politely referred to as "that vicious bitch".

"Oh, my god," she moans and puts her face in her hands.

The truck immediately decelerates and she's not at all surprised when it makes a few unexpected turns - the diner is to the east and they're going south, now - before pulling off onto rougher road. McGarrett doesn't say anything, which she appreciates, as he turns off the engine and they both listen to it tick cool under the blinding sun. It's stuffy and warm, but she appreciates that. Sometimes warmth can be worn like a cloak, its effects muffling other, more personal reactions.

Her eyes sting. "I can't _work_ like this," she tells her palms. "My projects are all suffering and I swear, I am losing brain cells every single time this happens. They're probably atrophying out of sheer _shock._"

"Your projects aren't suffering."

"Oh, yes, because you're an accurate measure of how good I am."

"Maybe not, but Chin is. He says you've made some brilliant discoveries the past few weeks."

"I have? He has? He said that?"

Steve waits until she's looking at him before nodding. "Yup. He said I probably shouldn't tell you, since you were too distracted to notice."

"But you're telling me now."

"It wasn't the right time, before."

That... makes no sense. "But why is _now_ the right time?"

"Because before you didn't need the encouragement," McGarrett says, expression unreadable. "Now you do."

Oh. Okay, she can magnanimously agree that there's logic to the statement. It makes her feel kind of small and maybe even a little humble, though. She's not used to it. "I'm not some fainting flower you have to prop up. I'm a talented marine working with the kind of equipment and personnel that a lot of military people would _orgasm_ over, and… "

And McGarrett's hand is on her forearm, rubbing up and down soothingly. "And I'm not talking to you like I'd talk to a fainting flower. You _are_ an exceptional marine, but sometimes you don't see things. I do."

Kono can't help it. She actually can't help it because there's something so magnetic, eyes pulling up and to the left where she can stare and stare and think, _I see you._

The truck is getting thick but neither of them moves.

"Commander McGarrett - "

"Will you _stop_? You always call me that! Everyone calls me Steve, but not you, _Lieutenant_ _Kalakaua_," he snarls at her, eyes hot, yanking his hand back and opening up an ocean of distance between them. "You have to - "

"You never gave me permission!" she shouts back and this is better. Anger is better, she knows how to handle that. "I waited, I was _pointed_, and you just smirked at me, you stupid sailor, like you were withholding it on purpose!"

"I was _teasing you!_ I was playing a game, Christ, Kono, it's called _flirting_! Don't you get how much I - " And he moves, or she moves, it doesn't matter because his mouth is hot and bruising against her own, kissing her fiercely as he pushes her against the door, squirming over the seat until most of his weight pins her there and he's still kissing her, still yelling at her without any words at all.

Kono kisses back as hard as she can, but he's _heavy_. Her body is tingling everywhere, like pins and needles without the potential for pain, and it's _there_, hot and solid against her hip, his hands clutching her shoulders, her back and then sliding up to cup her neck and.

And she just melts.

It's not conscious, because her mind wants to kiss back, wants to touch him the way he's been so comfortable touching her. But she can't: not with McGarrett stretched out over her, solid, male warmth that makes her want to lie back and spread her legs, something she's never once experienced before. It's instinct so powerful she shakes with it, moaning into him even as he sucks on her tongue, finally getting one hand up to cup his jaw.

Eventually, McGarrett backs off enough that he can pant wet and gasping against her chin. "I had a picnic basket," he mutters.

"What?"

"I was gonna make you lunch. And maybe try to feed it to you."

"You're a _romantic?"_ she says, incredulous.

He flushes, but maybe that's the heat of the car or of her, and ducks his head as much as he can given their position. "Maybe."

"I, um. Don't actually object, you know. I like food. Especially when others bring it to me."

"I know. The guys think of it as the thrice-daily tribute."

She hits him on the shoulder, too light to hurt either of them, feeling his rumbling laughter echo through her and Jesus, yes, that's his dick. McGarrett's dick, hot despite two layers of clothes, laying firmly against her hip. "Other presents are good too," she manages. It comes out strangled and breathless; she feels like she's going to shiver out of her skin, turned inside out.

"Yeah?" He smiles at her, closed-mouth, but with something that gleams brighter than the wildest supernova in his eyes. He _moves_, not quite a stretch, not quite a rock and oh, oh, she has to squirm in return because now he's centered over her, hand planted on the seat and it's right where she wants, right, right -

"The whole ops personnel have been betting how long it'd take before you made a move," he tells her. His nose keeps brushing hers, lips tangling together with wet, soft sounds. "Last week they started asking me why _I_ wasn't."

"Why weren't you, then?" This isn't how courtship is supposed to go, really. He's supposed to make his intent clear and she's supposed to either say yes or no, maybe even demure like a character out of romance novels she used to analytically read for some clues she wasn't getting on her own. This is like leaping over not one or two hurdles, but _all_ of them.

Like taking off from a cliff and knowing it's either fly or fall.

"Wasn't sure you wanted me to."

His eyes go dark when he says that. Closed off again, like he's waiting for her to say that he's right, and she doesn't. Which is so patently ridiculous that she lets herself get just a little bit angry. "You…I've been staring at your dick for _months_, McGarrett!"

He jerks up to stare at her: eyes wide is a good look on him. "You were? Danny said, but... "

"What the hell else could it be?!" And she's going to have _words_ with Danny, as soon as she gets back to the ops.

Maybe next week sometime.

McGarrett shifts again, and she has to bite her lip, trying not to arch because he's getting _harder_ and _growing_ and there's no way she can possibly take all of him inside of her. Not at first, anyway, no matter how much the tingling turns into a throb of ache and want, her legs widening to cradle his hips while inside she goes liquid with acceptance. They'll try _lots_ of times, she thinks, until she can.

She's a resourceful marine after all. She'll make it work.

"I thought - god, _Kono_ - " McGarrett is saying. He starts to rock almost imperceptibly, thick and hard right over the seam of her pants, digging the material into her clit. "You've got a rep for not really liking military guys."

"Because military guys tend to think that they have to prove that they are better and stronger than me," she explains. "I'm just a challenge in their eyes most of the time."

Steve makes a low noise that's pure sex. "Kono," he gasps, "Kono, tell me this is, tell me it's okay."

"You worry too much," she whispers and cups his jaw again, fingers scraping over stubble as she kisses him as fiercely as he kissed her before. He moans into the kiss, surging even closer; and then he's gentling the kiss, slowing it into something sweet and careful, fragile like this is new instead of logical, like it's tentative instead of inevitable. She kisses him through it, waiting with a patience she's never known before.

"I want this," she tells him, voice strangely small.

He kisses her cheeks and her nose. "You were staring at my dick? Really?"

"Oh, don't tell me I'm the first women who's been forced through all of this before sleeping with you."

"Actually, you're kinda the first." It's natural for them to disengage, to slide back to their respective seats. The heat that's sprung up, unrelated to the sun, doesn't dissipate at all. It's still there, prickling her skin and making her sweat, only waiting. Banked to embers. They don't need to rush this. McGarrett glances over at her and there's a hint of shadow appearing in his eyes. "I, ah, have had partners - "

"Please," she dismisses, reaching out to lay her hand directly between his legs. He gasps, gratifyingly, flushing beet red as he holds as still as he can. He throbs under her touch and she carefully curves a thumb, smirking when he goes completely rigid in reaction. "We're not having penetrative sex today, anyway."

"Oh?" he chokes.

"Not yet, anyway." He's not objecting, though, not with the way he's sweating, hands slipping on the wheel. It makes her feel more than a little smug. "Hm. Do I need to drive? Because I'm not known for being a fan of car crashes, and even less so now."

That goads him into opening his eyes. "Kono… "

"Yes, Steve?" His throat bobs appealing in reaction, eyes wide, and she wants to lean over and lick and bite along the muscle. She wants him to always look at her like that, with wonder and attraction and something like the universe spiraling over both of them. "You might want to hurry up and get us home. I have very poor impulse control and the front seat of a Ford monstrosity is _not_ where I want our first time to be."

It's a sideways nod to Steve's romantic side, although Kono says it mostly because they're in _bucket seats_, which is a world of no. Whichever the reason, Steve finally wakes up enough to give her a swift, bright kiss before he guns the engine into a roar. "Right," he says and if he's speeding, she's not going to complain. This time. "Right. Kono - "

"You can make a decent bomb," she says, eyes half closed, body thrumming along with the engine. Her hand is still stretch across the cabin, touching him, his stomach inhaling against her elbow and she wants to wrap herself up inside of him, to have him breathe against her skin and taste her. "How could I say no to that, Steve?"

"So it's just that I know explosives," and the teasing curl of pleasure is back in his voice, a lazy drawl that she knows means _love_. She doesn't know how she knows it, but it's true: gravity works, the sky is almost always blue on a habitable planet, and Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett has been in love with her since she arrived to the ops, six months ago.

"Lead the way, Steve," she whispers while the truck gains momentum beneath them, Steve's hands white knuckled on the wheel. "I want to follow _you_."


End file.
